


Sasuke Uchiha

by aisverse



Category: Naruto
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/F, F/M, Good Uchiha Sasuke, M/M, Protective Uchiha Sasuke, Slow Burn, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-01 18:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17248958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisverse/pseuds/aisverse
Summary: Sasuke realizes his truth-seeking, law-abiding, Uchiha-is-supreme father is a hypocrite and a liar. Knowing the lies Fugaku has been ingraining into his sons has Sasuke questioning his father and the righteousness of the 'Uchiha way'.





	1. Where did Sasuke's kunai go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To Kay: I 1000% have you to thank and blame for this. Your Naruto fic 'Hit The Ground Running' is an inspiration that gained me an interesting read, a good friend and the motivation to write again after eight bloody years.
> 
> To Minnie: thank you so much for waiting for fuck damn long for my sorry ass to finally write something again! *goes and hides in a bush*

Sasuke feels a curse building in his chest. His foot turns too quickly and the kunai he'd been gripping with only his middle and ring fingers is thrown into the air and arches. It soars pass its intended target and slices into the treetops, spilling out of his line of sight. The curse bubbles inside him but he bites his bottom lip harshly and holds it in. He is an Uchiha. Uchiha men do not let their emotions dictate how they react. Uchiha men do not curse.

Without a thought, Sasuke drops the rest of the kunai he'd been holding in his other hand and runs. He can't lose a single kunai. The last time, he hadn't been paying attention and lost a good twelve pack in under two weeks. When he'd asked for new ones, his father had handed him grade C level kunais instead of the grade A he'd been used to. Any grade lower and the kunais wouldn't even be sharp. They were the ones academy students used or were sold to civilian children who daydreamed of becoming proper shinobi but would probably never amount to anything past Career Low-Ranks.

Uchiha used to be a war clan. Uchiha men do not use anything lower than C grade weaponry.

Stumbling over shrubbery and jagged rocks that divides the training sites apart from residential areas within the Uchiha compound, Sasuke eyes the leaves slightly above his head and tries to follow the line of trajectory. The thick trees he’s more used to seeing around training areas slowly begins to thin the further he runs. He can hear voices a bit in the distance and involuntarily gulps. The voices were loud, even this far away, low-pitched and husky. Definitely _not_ the voices of children.

_Shit._

Uchiha men do not curse _outloud_.

The trees open up to the back of a wooden structure Sasuke recognizes from his yearly visits with his family on New Years and the occasional weekends both his father and brother are sent on out-of-village missions that worry his mother.

Even from the back, Naka Shrine is a vast and an empowering visage of the Uchihas’ influence and strength. It is a single storey structure but it stretches in length in what it lacks in height. The panellings constantly appears new and well seen to. Despite being made of wood, Sasuke couldn't find a single discoloured window bar.

Except one.

“Do _not_ make excuses, child! I don't want to hear it!”

Startled, Sasuke hurries out of the canopy of trees. He crouches low, his head well below the height of the window sill. From sound alone, Sasuke can guess the number of men walking back and forth on the other side of the wall he has against his back.

Uchiha men stride with a purpose.

After what seems like hours, the voices quiet down to less yelling and more harsh whispering. With a long breath, Sasuke straightens his shoulders, gathers his courage and twists his body to a semi-crouch. He stretches his legs just barely enough to peek into the window. Three of the wood bars that make up the windows are crushed inwards.

He can imperceptibly hear the older men in the room scolding a young boy, not much older than him though perhaps a few years before Itachi. They have him surrounded in a circle. The boy’s head is down, his shoulders hunched and his fists are firmly gripping the shirt at the front of his stomach in a completely submissive stance. He doesn't speak a word in his defence.

A small part of Sasuke doesn't like the way they box him in. There are at least ten men in there with him and none of them are even close to his age. Some look as old as his great-grand-uncle had before he passed.

Sasuke grips his fist into his shorts in order to hold his tongue.

Uchiha men do not speak out of turn.

Pushing his fingernails into the thin material of his shorts, Sasuke quietly hisses at the sting against his thigh. He shakes his head and refocuses on _why_ he was even there. He observes the way the wood panels are bent inwards and calculates how the kunai must have entered in order for the wood to break specifically in that direction. Upwards. He glances towards the ceiling. Sure enough, there's a kunai wedged in-between two connecting support beams.

None of the men are looking anywhere in the direction of the kunai, but he knows that won't last for long. It would only take one person to yawn, tilt their head upward and question why there was a kunai in the ceiling for them to make a grab for it.

The men are still at the boy a good ten minutes later and seem to have no intention of leaving. If anything, are there even moreof them?

Sasuke leans back down to a proper crouch then tilts his head. The sun is turning the sky a dark maroon. His mother had forbid him from staying out past dark after the last time he did and came home with second degree burn marks along his throat.

He'll have to come back when the shrine is empty.

_Fuck me._


	2. Does Sasuke get his kunai back?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick warning: I have never watched a Naruto filler episode in full, only in bits and pieces on YouTube whenever it appears in my recommended list. I have absolutely no references for Sasuke's mother other than what I've read in fanfics and those vary massively from one fic to the next. So I've based Sasuke's mom's attitude and their behaviour to each other based on my own rather unconventional friendship with my own mom. We're surprisingly close for a trans child and his mother and there has been massive amounts of rather 'inappropriate’ jokes between us for the last half a decade. If anyone feels uncomfortable with the way Mikoto jokes with Sasuke? Suck it. I love my mom and we joke around like this all the time. Dad? Not so much. He's too much like Fugaku. You can guess where I'll base Sasuke's behaviour to his father then too.

Despite rushing back to the clearing, gathering the kunai he had haphazardly spewed across the clearing, roughly smashing them into a bag and running at a reckless and entirely _un_ Uchiha-like manner home; dinner is a quiet affair.

His mother has the table set for only two. He wishes it is a rare thing, but it's become more and more common as Sasuke grows older. There are days he watches his mother stir a stew idly with uneven gazing eyes staring blankly out a kitchen window facing at the front entrance of their home, a quietness to her that feels wrong and it has him constantly saying 'no’ to his cousins who ask him over to stay for dinner or sleepovers.

It is a simple dinner of grilled mackerel, pickled radishes and rice cooked with bamboo shoots. Sasuke doesn't allow himself to complain about the simple fare. Uchiha men do not whine. He's especially thankful he manages to keep his mouth shut when he's able to smell a deeply rich, acidic and ridiculously familiar scent wafting from the kitchen.

Sasuke allows himself to calmly stand in the middle of the room, his breaths heavy and uneven. He'll have to increase his endurance training if a 'light jog’ from across the compound is enough to leave him breathless. 

He hears his mother approaching from behind him. “Where's father?” he asks.

Mikoto smiles gently at Sasuke. “Late shift at work,” she answers him. “He doesn't have time to come home for dinner so he said he'll have something with his team.”

“Itachi?”

She lays down two bowls of creamy braised tomato soup; one a medium size bowl and the other a bowl large enough to be considered a modest serving platter. “Out-of-village mission.”

“Rank?”

“Classified.”

“So an ANBU mission,” Sasuke decidedly does _not_ pout. Uchiha men do not _pout_. “He's been assigned more of those lately. He's almost never home anymore.”

Mikoto pats his head and kisses his cheek. “It's all for the good of the village, Sasuke. One day it'll be you in that uniform and you'll understand. Now wash up while the soup's still warm.”

Dinner is eaten quietly, but it's a gentle and peaceful type of silence. He doesn't feel forced to be so by his mother but he is also confident in her not needing him to fill the room with useless chatter.

Towards the end of the meal, Sasuke sips at his tomato soup, even though he wants to drink it down in gulps the way he sometimes sees a blond boy does at a ramen stall whenever he accompanies his mother to the market. Uchiha men eat like gentlemen. He's never seen his father or Itachi ever eat hurriedly.

“Did Itachi mention when he is to return from his mission?”

“Sometime tomorrow,” she says, collecting the plates into a single pile. “Possible tomorrow night. Your father wants him to drop by the station on his way home to discuss some clan matters.”

“Do you need me to help with the dishes?”

Mikoto smiles. “No, it's alright.” She kisses the top of his head this time in a half crouch while balancing the plates in one hand. “It's not much since it was just the two of us. You take your time in the bath and go to bed. I've already had mine.”

“Will you be going to bed right after?”

“Why?” Mikoto grins. “Will you be keeping me company tonight?”

“Mother!”

Mikoto lets out a loud boisterous laugh. It almost seems unbecoming of an Uchiha, but everything Sasuke is taught was about Uchiha _men_. His mother's laugh is beautiful so it must be fine.

“You three are always so proper,” Mikoto teases and walks steadily into the kitchen.

Sasuke very nearly stomps up the stairs to his room in a huff but he feels a shiver run along his back and the voice of his father harsh in his ear. Uchiha men walk with _dignity_.

The moment has him stopped in front of the room directly across from his; Itachi's. The door is slightly ajar and Sasuke can almost make out a pile of discarded black uniform trousers sprawled on the floor. The mission must have been without warning. Itachi’s room is typically so organized the men working at the administrative building would weep at its efficiency.

Sasuke strains his hearing for a moment. His mother is still in the kitchen washing, gently alternating between singing and humming a mild tune about blue birds to herself. The kitchen is on the other side of the house. She shouldn't be able to differentiate which room he goes into.

Quickly digging his nails into his thighs, Sasuke nods to himself and pushes Itachi's bedroom door all the way open. He ignores everything in the room and focuses completely on a small set of drawers next to a large wardrobe. He quickly rushes in, reaches to the second drawer and is careful to not slam it shut after reaching in and grabbing one coil of the highest quality ninja wire.

What's typically sold ranges from Grate A to Grade D. There is another grade made solely for ANBU, the Sages and the Fire Shadow Lord. It is unnamed and unmarked. It is purchased through private exchange of hands and looks no different from ordinarily, obtainable ninja wire. There are fifty others still inside the drawer. Uchiha styles rely heavily on wire and Sasuke has seen Itachi blow through a good five pack during his spars with their cousin. One coil hopefully won't be missed.

Sasuke quickly but silently closes the drawer and walks out the room, taking the little extra time to close the door in the exact way it had been left ajar.

He quickly heads to his room and closes the door. With the confidence of a boy born to a clan of primary illusionary technique users, Sasuke moves his hand into a familiar seal and he slowly breathes his chakra to mold around him, around his room and around his bed. He carefully weaves an illusion of him sleeping soundly in his bed. He's been weaving illusions for years, practically the one skill he was allowed to learn before his mother stopped fretting about him holding onto a sharpened blade. It isn't strong enough to hold against his mother's eyes but he rarely ever sneaks out so she wouldn't be looking for illusions to break.

With a confident nod, Sasuke opens his window, twirls wire around the window frame and flings himself onto a tree branch. Instead of falling to the ground to run towards the shrine and risk his mother seeing him, Sasuke decides to run along the tree branches. His steps are uneven and he almost always has at least one hand out to balance himself against another branch. He hasn't learnt yet how Itachi and his cousins are able to run across entire forests with such elegance. His brother promises him that'll be the next thing Sasuke learns when Itachi has time. It's been four months since then, and it's becoming hard to not frown at the memory every time Sasuke has his foot slip from under him when he chooses a branch too thin to hold both his feet.

He soon reaches the trees surrounding Naka Shrine. The entire temple is dark and the grounds are quiet. He swiftly runs across the compound to a door nearest to the room he needs to be in. He winces every time his footsteps creak the wooden floorboards. Thankfully none of the devotes live in the temple anymore unlike in older times ever since the new Uchiha compound has been built.

When he finally reaches the room, it surprises him how much wider it is standing from the inside. The room is entirely empty, with only thick, high quality straw weaved mats covering the floor.

He eyes the broken pieces of wood bars in the window. The memory of the boy makes his eye twitch. They probably thought he was to blame for the damage. Sasuke feels guilt building in his chest, but there isn't much he can do. He doesn't know the boy and from the colouring of his ashen auburn hair, he isn't an Uchiha. Not a full-blooded one, at least. If he confesses then it would negate him bothering to sneak inside in the first place. If the old men are _true_ Uchiha then they should have investigated the matter properly. The wood bars are bent _inwards_ , like someone pushed from outside. If the boy who had been _inside_ was responsible, then it should have broken _outwards_.

Uchiha men are observant.

Shaking himself, Sasuke dislodges the thoughts in his head. He looks up to the corner of the room. There is barely any light filtering through the window, even as broken as it is. The moon isn't bright enough tonight and the thick forest surrounding Naka Shrine blocks the little light there is. Still, Sasuke is an Uchiha and if nothing else their eyes were bred in the dark. He squints and twirls the wire between his forefingers. With an absent-minded ease of something practiced, Sasuke pulls out one single kunai he always keeps in a secret pocket Itachi has taught him to sew in every single one of his shorts for emergencies. Wire is wrapped around the handle. He lets the kunai hang a few meters from his hands, dangling off the wire like an old fashioned fishing line. It twirls in a circle with a flick of his wrist. He aims for the connecting spot between the two support beams. The kunai wraps around the beam thrice and hooks itself into place when he tugs at it. After two more experimental tugs to assure himself the line's secure, Sasuke tentatively climbs the wire. It digs into the flesh of his palms as he climbs. He hisses under his breath and tries to move faster. The wire might be of the best quality and able to support his weight but the distribution of his weight is uneven and he has to stop himself from cursing not thinking ahead to wear gloves.

Uchiha men are always prepared.

He has never needed it before. Ninja wire is more Itachi's speciality. Yet no matter how much he has begged in the past, Itachi never seems to have time to show Sasuke how to use it in any other way than the basics taught to every Uchiha child.

After fifteen minutes, Sasuke reaches a hand out to grab at the support beam. He hoists himself up to sit on it. Thankfully he is still small enough to fit comfortably and have his weight not be enough to strain the structure. He lets himself have two minutes to let his stinging hands rest before he nimbly recoils the wire. It would be easier to leave it as be but there's a part of him that doesn't want to leave anything up to chance.

Uchiha men are not careless.

With a sigh of relief, Sasuke swings his right leg across the beam so that he's more or less straddling it and facing towards his kunai. He reaches for it with his less stinging hand and dislodges it from the wall in one swift pull. Sasuke smirks and makes quick work to pocket the kunai away.

He is about to swing his leg back across the beam when a loud sound of scraping stone fills the room. His eyes widen and he almost lets out a gasp looking towards the center of the room. A large rectangular slab _of the entire floor_ begins to break away and lift itself into the air, hovering upwards and away, leaving a giant passageway visible.

Sasuke grabs at the support beam under him in a vicious grip, staring at the man walking out of it with a grim frown on his face.

_Father?!_


	3. What is Sasuke's dad talking about?

Sasuke sits with his shoulder hunched tensely and his hands visibly shaking. He watches his father walk out from a _blacken hole in the ground_ of a passageway with stairs and followed closely behind by three other men, all far older than Sasuke deems necessary to live to. Two of the men walk with a crooked back and the last stands at attention, the obviously more militarily trained and unable to bleed such conditioning out of his very being anymore.

“Are you certain he will yield to you, Fugaku?” One of the sniveling elder asks. His voice is pointed and high-pitched, coated in a tone of reproval similar to the men who scolded the boy earlier that evening. Definitely related; technically they all are since they are all Uchihas and the thought of it partially wants to make Sasuke gag the more the thinks about it, so he forces himself to stop. “He may be a genius but the boy had the gaul to refuse to bow to us first before the old fart.”

Sasuke nearly gasps. Uchiha men do not allow filth to leave their lips. He quickly bites his tongue and tightens his hold on the support beam even more.

Fugaku looks at the man with a scowl. “Do not refer to your highest authority in these lands by such where _others can hear you_ ,” he warns, though he is rebuffed immediately. “I will see to it he does what he knows is his duty. He is my son and he knows what _family_ means.”

“See to it he does, Fugaku. Our future cannot be held in the hands of a boy who won't listen to reason.”

The two civilian Uchiha elders stiffly nod and makes their way out of the room. Sasuke sees his father visibly sigh out a breath with a harsh stretch of his shoulders, and then turn to the last elder in the room.

The elder shakes his head. “They will be the death of you, child.”

“Do not call me child,” Fugaku hisses.

The other man smirks and pats Fugaku harshly along the back of his neck. “I do not care you have sired two children of your own, Fugaku. You will forever be a child to me until you are old and gray and I am watching you gasp on your death-bed being held onto by my daughter’s desperate grasp.”

“That is morbid, sir.”

“Our entire heritage is morbid. My daughter is the one thing that hasn't made me sour like dried raisins the way those two have,” he chuckles.

Fugaku clears his throat. “Do you wish for me to accompany you home?”

The old man waves him off. “Keep your mild manners for someone who hasn't already handed you the most precious gift he has ever lived to love. You should worry more about going home to her.”

“She isn't expecting me back so early.”

“Oh?” He raises his eyebrows. “What did you tell her? I know my child. She wouldn't have let you happily come here if she knows what those two are planning.”

Fugaku looks away as he says, “I implied I was working late at the station.”

“Did you have anyone at the station that can back this claim if she asks?”

Fugaku huffs at the slight, but nods.

“Good. Uchiha men are thorough.” The elder starts walking to the door and grips Fugaku's shoulder as he passes. “But don't make it a habit, boy. My daughter was friends with that Uzumaki lass for a reason.”

Fugaku quietly nods, waits for the elder to leave before he pulls his hands together into a sign and directs the stone slab back into its place on the ground. Sasuke gulps watching any trace of the stairwell completely seal itself. Fugaku then leaves through the door.

Sasuke releases a sigh of relief and finally lifts his hands off the support beam. His hands have indentations pressed into the skin of his palms but it's the swirling in his head that worries him.

His father lied.

Uchiha men do not lie.

Sasuke closes his eyes and presses the palms of his already tender hands into his eyelids. He wants to groan but he keeps himself steady by pushing his hands deeply against his face for a moment. He makes quick work of letting the coil fall to the floor again. He glides down to the floor in one swift leap, tugs the wire loose, pockets the kunai and runs out the door into the forests behind the shrine.

He can't think. As he rushes through foliage and low-growing shrubs, his mind is twisting in four different ways. He's never seen his father bow to anyone before. His father is Clan Head and, to Sasuke, all he's ever known is everyone bowing to _him_.

Sasuke doesn't even register himself climbing the tree growing towards his bedroom window until he's landed in his room, closed the window and moves his fingers into the symbol to cancel the illusion he had set earlier. There is a pressure at the base of his nape and his hands are still shaking, though more mild than it had been. He turns to his bed with the thought of seeping into the covers until morning and deem the entire night as one fevered dream, but then he hears his mother's voice.

Her voice feels like a balm and his shoulders gradually lowers. He can't make out what she is saying, but the mere fact she is speaking at all means his father is home too. Curiosity that is entirely too harshly raging in his ribcage to ignore has him slip out of his bedroom and carefully walk towards the top of the stairwell, looking down at the hallway leading to their entrance.

“Has Itachi returned?”

“You and Sasuke are entirely too similar. Sasuke asked the same earlier before dinner." Mikoto laughs. "No. Itachi will return tomorrow and he promised me a souvenir from the markets there.”

Fugaku huffs. “Do I not give you enough, wife?” There is a sound of rustling fabric but Sasuke can only listen from where he's primly perched in a corner.

“You give me plenty, dear, but a mother is not going to say ‘no’ to her own son wanting to spoil her.” Sasuke hears his mother's hand patting at his father. “Sasuke asked for you as well. He mentioned about Itachi's increased load in missions but I know he’s thinking about how much less you're home too.”

“Work takes precedence. A case doesn't wait for a time that is convenient.” Sasuke swallows at the ease of which his father lies.

“I understand that, but Sasuke is still just a child. I reassured him and it is fine for now but he won't be a quietly obedient boy forever, Fugaku. The less you see him now will only quicken the less time you'll see him at all. He starts the academy next term.”

“The case is too sensitive at work at the moment.” There is a quiet pause, the air momentarily thick with a tension Sasuke only ever feels when he watches his mother scowl heatedly at market sellers yelling at a small child in orange rags for a shirt. “I will see to him when this case is settled tomorrow with Itachi.”


End file.
